


The life of John Murphy

by rasalas



Category: The 100 (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-11 04:35:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3314156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rasalas/pseuds/rasalas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the title indicates, this is the story of John Murphy. It starts when he is five years old, and continues to about the time where they are now (season 2b).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The life of John Murphy

He was five years old and everything in his life was okay. He was young enough to be living in that happy bubble where all the problems stayed outside. His mother and father were happily married since many years back, and he had just started pre-school.

His mother was pregnant with his little sister, and he couldn’t have been happier. As he was only five years old he didn't fully understand how it all happened, but just seeing that his mother's belly got bigger made him beam with happiness.

He could still wake up with a smile on his lips after a good night of sleep, and the only nightmares he had was of monsters under his bed. It wasn't death, or blood, or fear of dying of starvation that terrorised him. He was as innocent as a five year old could be.

-

He was seven years old and his mother had miscarried the year before. He had been so excited, wishing for a new playmate so bad. Someone that he could protect, someone that he would do anything for. But that didn't happen, and for the first time in his life he experienced what grief was and what it brought with itself.

His parents were not as happy as before, and he could often hear them fighting during the evenings. Most nights he would be tucked in under the covers, closing his eyes tightly and trying to escape to a world where his his parents' loud voices didn't exist. A world where you could get as much free food as you wanted, and where you could actually feel the sun against you skin, not just watch it through a thick window.

School was getting harder for him. He went there every day just as he was supposed to, but he struggled with the letters and the words they formed and all his classmates got far ahead. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the words written on the pages in front of him, the letters just wouldn’t stop moving. They danced back and forth, as if they where trying to irritate him on purpose.

For the second time that year pneumonia began circling in the lower sectors. Children and elders got sick - they started coughing, felt pain in their chests and got fevers. For the first time in his life he witnessed a human's death. People had been disappearing for a few days, but he didn't expect the kind old man next door to be the next one, even when he began showing signs of symptoms. He used to be over at the man's, listening to stories about the ground and drinking tea. He had continued to do so, even after the man got sick and his parent's forbid him to see him. The old man had been laying in his bed, with the young boy sitting next to him, when he took his last breath. 

Then one day, it the boy was the one that started coughing. It started out as a ordinary cold, but days passed and it didn’t get better. It got a lot worse, and the coughing was followed by the typical fever.  His mother took him to the doctor, and they got their suspicions confirmed. Much of the antibiotics had been used during the first wave, and according to the doctors there was nothing they could do as they had to ration what was left. 

His mother got a warning that day, for "yelling at the authority”. She was one of the lucky few that got away easy, and had she stepped one inch closer to the doctor they would’ve floated her without a second thought.

-

He celebrated his eight birthday in his bed, with a high fever and a feeling that his body temperature was shifting with each second that passed. He went from having his cover tucked tightly around his body in a attempt to conserve the heat, to having to throw it all off longing for the cold. He had trouble breathing too, a sharp pain like the scratching of knives in his chest with each breath he took.

That was also the day where his father made the choice that would cost him his life, in exchange for his son’s.

When the now eight year old boy woke up for the fourth time from his feverish slumber he saw something on his nightstand - a small jar labeled ‘antibiotics’ with ten small white pills in it, along with a note saying;

_“John, take one of these every day until you’ve taken them all. If you do that you will get better. Remember - I love you. Dad.”_

He took the first one right away, not knowing the actual worth of each pill. The though of his father helped ease his mind, and it didn't take long before he went back to sleep again. 

-

He was ten years old now. His hair had grown longer than it'd ever been before, and he was all skin and bones. His mother went to work sometimes, but most of the time she stayed at home. More than a couple times a week she exchanged his ration for moonshine, and drank until she disappeared into the bottom of the flask. He didn't talk to her much at all, even though this was the time in his life where he probably needed her the most. She'd lost her husband, but he'd lost a father. Two years had passed, but his mother didn't pull herself together as he'd thought she would, and she spent more time thinking of the dead than the alive. She'd lost the love of her life, but her son was still there. So why didn't she care?

He started skipping school this year. After his father died he tried to continue as if nothing happened, but all the glances,  _all the whispers_ , reminded him over and over that it would never be as it'd been before. He just couldn't take it, and school was continuing to get harder as well. The letters still wouldn't cooperate, and no matter how hard he tried to catch up with the rest of his class it just wasn't possible. They made him feel stupid - not on purpose, of course - but they made it seem so easy, when it just  _wasn't._

When he stopped going to school, he didn't get lunch anymore. Hunger had been a familiar feeling ever since his mother started trading away his food, but now it got worse and more frequent. It was something he experienced every day, like a tiny monster inside of him, screaming for food and scratching and biting if it didn't get any. 

-

It was the little monster that pushed him to stealing for the first time. And the second, and the third. And all the other times as well. The first time he only stole a few grapes, so afraid of getting caught. With each time he got more and more confident, and stole more and more food. Even if he stole more things, it was never more than what would keep the tiny monster at bay for a while. He didn't steal for the fun of it, he was stealing to ensure his own survival.

Eventually, after four long years of almost starving to death, he got caught. He had gotten to greedy, trying to steal a whole loaf of bread and two small potatoes. One bite of bread and one potato had found it's way to his stomach when the guards pulled him away from the corner where he was hiding, arresting him on the spot.

He did get to see his mother before they locked him away in the sky box, and even if he had expected what he got to see, it still hurt just as much. When his mother opened their door to see who it was that dared to disturb her it was obvious that she'd drunk quite a bit. Her eyes were watery, and when the guard's told her what had happened and what would happen to him she didn't move a muscle. Not one emotion was displayed on her face, there wasn't a trace of sadness, guilt, _anything_ , not even in her eyes. She just nodded her head, said goodbye and good luck and then closed the door. He could feel that even the guards where surprised by her numbness.

-

He was now sixteen years old and had been locked up in the sky box for two years. There were two more years before he would have people decide if he was worthy enough to continue living, or if he would go away the same way his father did.

The funny thing was that he lived better in the sky box than he had done before. He got food three times a day, and the small monster didn't dare to show up anymore. Being locked up with limited space to move in wasn't something he prefered, but he had gotten used to it during the time that passed. The first weeks, hell, the first  _months_ , he had gotten both irritated and angry and he'd had problems sitting still, pacing back and forth all the time. Still, even that got boring after a while. He'd searched for other ways to entertain himself, and found out that he had a talent for both coming up with and telling stories. He wasn't able to write them down, but that didn't change his ability to tell them. 

It was also while being locked up that he made friends with John Mbege. After half a year being alone in his cell, one day another boy was thrown in. The boy was about a year older than himself, a bit taller and with a grim expression on his face. They both recognized eachother  though they hadn't talked before. It took them a while to actually get to know eachother, and even more to get friends, since they where both trying to shut down their feelings in a way to avoid getting hurt. What really broke the ice was his talent for stories. They began talking about the earth, imagining how it would be to live down their, both before the war and now. Neither of them knew that they would soon find out.

-

Before his seventeenth birthday he was sent to the ground, almost hanged, tortured for three days, seen his friends die and getting freezed out and called a traitor.

He spent his actual birthday in the desert, searching for a city they didn't even knew if it existed or not. There were sand all around him, on his face, in his hair, on his clothes. His lips were chapped and his mouth dry, both of them longing for moisture. He was the only one that was aware of the fact that it was a day that should be celebrated, and he was torn between feeling angry and thankful about it. He wanted people to care enough to know and to actually want to make it a special day for him, but he knew that that last person disappeared when Mbege abandoned him. That's why he was thankful that no one knew. If they knew they would either feel forced to make an effort even though they didn't care, or they would know and wouldn't care. He didn't know which one would be worse.

So that was why he kept his mouth shut, continued to put one foot in front of the others, trusting Jaha to find their safe haven.

-

The desert was huge, and it came as no surprise to him that they got lost in the sand. However, what did come a surprise to him was that they would get caught by hostile nomads. Once again he was tortured and after all these years the tiny monster that he had gotten used to on the Ark returned. He was forced to work, carrying heavy boxes for mile after mile. All while getting limited food and water. It was tiring for both his body and his mind, and for every minute that passed he got closer to giving up.

After all these years of struggling and fighting for his survival, he lost. John Murphy didn't get to experience his twenty-first birthday. 

**Author's Note:**

> I like to make myself sad for some reason. I made Murphy have dyslexia because I think that is a more interesting reason for him to be bad at spelling (I'm thinking of "first son, first to dye") than just "he's bad at spelling", and that it gives a bit more to his character . I also kinda ruined the thing of him and Mbege being friends since they where small, so yeah. But I hope you like it anyway, and if you find anything that's just wrong (grammar, spelling, the 100 facts) please let me know!


End file.
